One of the most intriguing questions that has ever been brought up was "if we are suffering from Global Warming, why did Typhoon Ondoy happen?"
It seems to be a valid question, especially if global warming essentially paints a picture of drought in our minds. What is most important to understand is that global warming leads to extreme climate changes.
Climate change is a result of change in average temperature. Every degree of temperature increase leads to major changes in how our weather performs, changing rain patterns, annual rainfall, and others.
As the temperature gets hotter, the planet's natural cooling system is to evaporate as much water, which then falls accordingly. Movement of water from the ocean to the sky, or even heat from the ground, creates wind force. When this wind force is strong enough, we have a typhoon.
When there is extraordinarily higher amount of heat, there is an expected larger volume of evaporation accordingly, which means, more rains.
While rains are good, a balanced amount of rain spread over a period of time ensures environmental sustainability.
What has occurred is an over increase of water evaporation, which has also increased wind pressure, thus, this has brought an amazing amount of rain in a very short span of time. This rain was so overwhelming that the entire metropolis could not handle the volume brought on.
And it is not only in the Philippines where the devastation of flood has come in. India, Pakistan, and many other countries have already presented major flooding brought by large rain volume on a short span of time. This was not anticipated, for the change in overall climate meant a redesign of how cities will have to flow.
If the climate gets even warmer, we will have to rethink our geography, and might have to look at a map in a completely new light in the future.
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